Loss
by Tigerlily1
Summary: Hermione must remember a painful past to save her future. My very first fic!


Loss  
  
  
Disclaimer: everyone belongs to JK Rowling. I own no one. Not that I ever did...  
  
Hermione did not want to go back, but she knew she had to. She was so tired of sadness and sorrow, strife and grief. And most of all, of waiting for something that she dad to acknowledge did not exist. She had to do the hardest thing she had ever done before: let of Harry.   
  
That was why she stood here, by this lake. This cursed water that held so many memories. She had to remember, and let go. I don't want to relive it again a small voice inside her head protested. Don't make me go through the pain again. No, I can't back out now. I have to live. It's been five damn years. I' not going to spend another five in despair. With this final resolution, Hermione braced herself as if expecting a physical force to sweep over her, but the memories came, instead. They were unstoppable, drowning her and forcing her in. Hermione closed her eyes, and remembered.  
*****  
  
It was their seventh year. It was always the seventh year. Old wizards telling stories to their grandchildren always began with "It was my seventh year..."  
  
Voldmort was back. Hermione could remember the moment at that end of her fourth year when she knew he had returned and a long and difficult battle lay ahead.  
  
But the battle had come slowly. Voldmort may have had a new body, but he was still weak. He was just biding his time, gathering up old supporters and allies (and, unfortunately, some now ones). Meanwhile, Dumbledoor and a handful of others who knew the truth were scrambling around, trying desperately to stop a catastrophe.  
  
But life at Hogwarts was pretty normal, relatively speaking. Final exams were upon Hermione, Ron, and Harry. But they still managed to find time to relax, if only for a afternoon. It was down by that lake, one day, where Harry took Hermione sometime late afternoon.  
  
Harry and Hermione had gotten together at the end of their sixth year. Poor Hedwig had been very glad when school was back in session so she wouldn't have to constantly ferry letters between the two of them.  
  
"I thought you were going to play chess with Ron, "Hermione told Harry as they sat down beside the water.  
  
"I know, but with exams and everything, we haven't spent any time together in an eternity." He leaned over and kissed her briefly. "And, I probably would have lost to Ron, anyway."  
  
"That is definitely true."  
  
"Hermione! You're supposed to say I'm a great chess player!"  
  
"But you're not," she pointed out.  
  
"Fine!" Harry aid. He tried to act as if he were sulking, but he couldn't quite keep the smile off his face.  
  
"Oh, be reasonable. Your great at many other things." He laughed and they passed the rest of the evening away. Sometimes they chatted lively, but sometimes they just sat, enjoying the serenity and simply being with each other.  
  
"Here, I have something for you," Hermione said sometime later.  
  
"What?" Harry asked, his eyebrows questioning above his green eyes.  
  
"Here," she answered while pulling out a pale pink rose from her robes. "It's charmed. It will never wilt. It took me almost a week of research to fin the charm."  
  
"Traditionally, it's the boy who gives the girl flowers."  
  
"I guess I'm not a very traditional person." She could see he liked her gift very much.  
  
The sun was setting, casting its lingering light all around, so everything seemed bathed in gold. It sunk slowly behind the trees of the Forbidden Forest, becoming a semicircle and then a sliver of light. It was as if the sun knew someone was waiting for it to go. Someone, something couldn't perform a deed until it was gone. It didn't know what horrors would be realized when it disappeared, it only know, when it came to shine on this part of the earth again, everything would be different. It was with this knowledge that the sun finally vanished behind the horizon.  
  
Suddenly, a blinding flash of white light eliminated the sky. There was no sound, yet the very light itself seemed to sream.  
  
Harry and Hermione broke out of their kiss.  
  
"What was that?" he asked her. She shook her head, she didn't know. She racked her brain for any spell, magical anomaly, or curses that could cause something like that flash, but came up with nothing.  
  
Without another word to each other, the couple raced up the hill toward Hogwarts. Hermione didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't what she saw. About half the castle was destroyed. There was ruble all around, along with bodies of students who were injured.  
  
"Please don't let anyone be dead," she whispered frantically to herself.   
  
Hermione could hear Professors yelling instructions to everyone who wasn't hurt. "Do something now, think about it later," she instructed herself. This first body she came across was Ginny Weasleys. Hermione healed the gash on her leg and tried to splint the broken arm. She was through four other people before she noticed someone tapping her shoulder.  
  
"Harry! Do you know what happened?" she asked when she turned around.  
  
He took a deep breath. "It was Voldmort." He stopped her from saying something, and then continued. "Hermione, I have to go after him. I'm the only one who can stop him. I know that, Dumbledoor knows that, and even he knows that. I have to leave right away. I'm-I'm sorry."  
  
"Sorry! Harry, this really isn't the time to play 'hero boy'. You don't have nearly enough training to take on You-Know-Who! And what about us? Damn it, I love you!"  
  
"Don't you think I've though about that? I certainly don't want to go off and leave you. I never asked to be Harry Potter. But I am. And I have to try."  
  
She couldn't think. She just looked at him, and saw what he was thinking. At last she said the only thing possible. "I love you."  
  
"I love you too," he whispered as he kissed her one last time. And then he was gone. Hermione stood alone against the destruction and coldness. She knew only love, and the pain of loss. It was quite a while before she realized when he last kissed her, he put something in her hand. She opened it slowly. It was the pale pink rose.  
  
*****  
  
Hermione opened her eyes, not even realizing that tears were streaming down her face. He had never come back. Voldmort had been destroyed, and everyone had assumed that Harry was also killed in the battle. Except they never found his body.  
  
She never knew what he meant by giving her back the pale pink rose. Did he tell her get over him? Love someone else, give him the rose? Or was he saying, "wait for me?"  
She had waited. Five years of waiting, hoping, wishing, and the despair that finally came at the end of every day when she realized, he had not come back. "Well, Harry," she whisperd to no one but herself. "I waited, and you did not come back to me. I'm sorry, but I can't live like this for the rest of my life. There are so many wonderful things to experience and learn, but I can't when I'm practically dying of a broken heart.   
  
"I have to try to get over you; to get on in life. I don't think I'll ever stop loving you, but I have to let go. So, good bye, Harry Potter. I will always love you." She took something out of her robes. It was that pale pink rose, which she dropped into the lake.   
  
She turned around, and slowly walked away.  
  
*****  
  
A dark figure came out of the shadows, and watched Hermione walk away. After the defeat of his enemy, he had been too changed, too hard to go back. It was as if winning had cost him his very soul. He didn't want her loving him because of what he had been, not as he was now.  
  
He picked the rose out of the water, and smelled it. He signed, as if remembering, and vanished as quickly as he had come.  
  
  
A/N This use to be in three parts, but that got all confusing, so I deleted them and put up this. It turned out a little sappy, but, hey, it was a romance story. I'm actually a H/R person, but this story kind of turned up in my head and I had to write it, even if it was a H/H. Happy Reading! :-)  
  



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